The Use and Impact of Total Quality Management in the UK Business Literature review

The Use and Impact of Total Quality Management in the UK Business Sector - Literature review Example Introduction Over the last few decades in the U.K, quality management models have been used to improve on the performance of the firms. It is thus applied by these firms in realization of excellent results. The literature review here has discussed whether the quality management fosters change and flexibility of firms in trying to realize their set goals or whether on contrary it hinders the firm’s interest in their new developments. Consequently, quality management has evolved considerably hence it is very much vital to try to determine whether these practices have provided effective means in order to respond to the flexibility necessary in the new competitive conditions (Hariharan 2004). Research design A list of techniques was generated from various sources, which included textbook, scholarly works. The initial list included 13 techniques. These are the techniques applied. Balanced score card, cooperate social responsibility, customer surveys, improvement teams, mission and vision statements, employee suggestion scheme, lean, knowledge management, QMS, Six sigma, supplier evaluation, SWOT analysis, and 5S (Hariharan 2004). Questionnaire and Questionnaire administration The questionnaire included the following questions on how quality management has been used in the following principles in the company. 1) Employee involvement 2) Company culture 3) Executive management 4) Company decision-making and continuous improvement. (Fahey 1997). First of all, a covering e-mail and survey was sent to the sample of 10 managers of the registered telecom companies in U.K. 5 days after the mail had been sent, a reminder postal card was also sent to non-responders. A total of 10 requests where made whereby seven of the interview requests were accepted. As a result, the whole interview yielded a total of 17 usable responses, which included seven from the structured interviews hence it yielded response rate of 17.8% and 9 from e-mail responses yielding a response rate of 30%. So, the overall response rate was 24.3%. (Fahey 1997). Non-response bias In trying to assess the non-response bias in the mail survey, the statistical significance different tests now between the earlier responses and the later response is used. So, using this method, first five responders and the last five responders were then compared. The test of the 20 randomly selected survey items then found there was no any statistical significant difference. This brought us to our conclusion that non-response may not be a major problem in our study. (Fahey 1997). Literature review According to Jackson (2002), total quality management is one of the management approaches applied by firms in seeking to establish zero defects when running your business. It comprises of team leadership, worker empowerment, and creative problem solving in order to achieve its set goals. These programs are now available in marketing, production, customer support, and finance. A TQM program includes all aspect s of organizations operations, which include, the structure of the company, the culture the company has developed, and its hiring and promotional practices. TQM evolved from the quality assurance methods that were first developed during the First World War. It was as a result of these was which led to large-scale manufacturing efforts that produced poor quality of goods and services in the world. Principles of total quality man